Wessex Tales, by Thomas Hardy

Interlopers at the Knap

Chapter i

The north road from Casterbridge is tedious and lonely, especially in winter-time. Along a part of its course it
connects with Long–Ash Lane, a monotonous track without a village or hamlet for many miles, and with very seldom a
turning. Unapprized wayfarers who are too old, or too young, or in other respects too weak for the distance to be
traversed, but who, nevertheless, have to walk it, say, as they look wistfully ahead, ‘Once at the top of that hill,
and I must surely see the end of Long–Ash Lane!’ But they reach the hilltop, and Long–Ash Lane stretches in front as
mercilessly as before.

Some few years ago a certain farmer was riding through this lane in the gloom of a winter evening. The farmer’s
friend, a dairyman, was riding beside him. A few paces in the rear rode the farmer’s man. All three were well horsed on
strong, round-barrelled cobs; and to be well horsed was to be in better spirits about Long–Ash Lane than poor
pedestrians could attain to during its passage.

But the farmer did not talk much to his friend as he rode along. The enterprise which had brought him there filled
his mind; for in truth it was important. Not altogether so important was it, perhaps, when estimated by its value to
society at large; but if the true measure of a deed be proportionate to the space it occupies in the heart of him who
undertakes it, Farmer Charles Darton’s business to-night could hold its own with the business of kings.

He was a large farmer. His turnover, as it is called, was probably thirty thousand pounds a year. He had a great
many draught horses, a great many milch cows, and of sheep a multitude. This comfortable position was, however, none of
his own making. It had been created by his father, a man of a very different stamp from the present representative of
the line.

Darton, the father, had been a one-idea’d character, with a buttoned-up pocket and a chink-like eye brimming with
commercial subtlety. In Darton the son, this trade subtlety had become transmuted into emotional, and the harshness had
disappeared; he would have been called a sad man but for his constant care not to divide himself from lively friends by
piping notes out of harmony with theirs. Contemplative, he allowed his mind to be a quiet meeting-place for memories
and hopes. So that, naturally enough, since succeeding to the agricultural calling, and up to his present age of
thirty-two, he had neither advanced nor receded as a capitalist — a stationary result which did not agitate one of his
unambitious, unstrategic nature, since he had all that he desired. The motive of his expedition to-night showed the
same absence of anxious regard for Number One.

The party rode on in the slow, safe trot proper to night-time and bad roads, Farmer Darton’s head jigging rather
unromantically up and down against the sky, and his motions being repeated with bolder emphasis by his friend Japheth
Johns; while those of the latter were travestied in jerks still less softened by art in the person of the lad who
attended them. A pair of whitish objects hung one on each side of the latter, bumping against him at each step, and
still further spoiling the grace of his seat. On close inspection they might have been perceived to be open rush
baskets — one containing a turkey, and the other some bottles of wine.

Mr. Darton with a half-laugh murmured, ‘Ay — call it my fate! Hanging and wiving go by destiny.’ And then they were
silent again.

The darkness thickened rapidly, at intervals shutting down on the land in a perceptible flap, like the wave of a
wing. The customary close of day was accelerated by a simultaneous blurring of the air. With the fall of night had come
a mist just damp enough to incommode, but not sufficient to saturate them. Countrymen as they were — born, as may be
said, with only an open door between them and the four seasons — they regarded the mist but as an added obscuration,
and ignored its humid quality.

They were travelling in a direction that was enlivened by no modern current of traffic, the place of Darton’s
pilgrimage being an old-fashioned village — one of the Hintocks (several villages of that name, with a distinctive
prefix or affix, lying thereabout) — where the people make the best cider and cider-wine in all Wessex, and where the
dunghills smell of pomace instead of stable refuse as elsewhere. The lane was sometimes so narrow that the brambles of
the hedge, which hung forward like anglers’ rods over a stream, scratched their hats and curry-combed their whiskers as
they passed. Yet this neglected lane had been a highway to Queen Elizabeth’s subjects and the cavalcades of the past.
Its day was over now, and its history as a national artery done for ever.

‘Why I have decided to marry her,’ resumed Darton (in a measured musical voice of confidence which revealed a good
deal of his composition), as he glanced round to see that the lad was not too near, ‘is not only that I like her, but
that I can do no better, even from a fairly practical point of view. That I might ha’ looked higher is possibly true,
though it is really all nonsense. I have had experience enough in looking above me. “No more superior women for me,”
said I— you know when. Sally is a comely, independent, simple character, with no make-up about her, who’ll think me as
much a superior to her as I used to think — you know who I mean — was to me.’

‘Ay,’ said Johns. ‘However, I shouldn’t call Sally Hall simple. Primary, because no Sally is; secondary, because if
some could be, this one wouldn’t. ’Tis a wrong denomination to apply to a woman, Charles, and affects me, as your best
man, like cold water. ’Tis like recommending a stage play by saying there’s neither murder, villainy, nor harm of any
sort in it, when that’s what you’ve paid your half-crown to see.’

‘Well; may your opinion do you good. Mine’s a different one.’ And turning the conversation from the philosophical to
the practical, Darton expressed a hope that the said Sally had received what he’d sent on by the carrier that day.

Johns wanted to know what that was.

‘It is a dress,’ said Darton. ‘Not exactly a wedding-dress; though she may use it as one if she likes. It is rather
serviceable than showy — suitable for the winter weather.’

‘Good,’ said Johns. ‘Serviceable is a wise word in a bridegroom. I commend ye, Charles.’

‘For,’ said Darton, ‘why should a woman dress up like a rope-dancer because she’s going to do the most solemn deed
of her life except dying?’

‘Faith, why? But she will, because she will, I suppose,’ said Dairyman Johns.

‘H’m,’ said Darton.

The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but it now took a turn, and winding uncertainly
for some distance forked into two. By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities which pass without
observation during day; and though Darton had travelled this way before, he had not done so frequently, Sally having
been wooed at the house of a relative near his own. He never remembered seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways
looking so equally probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a few steps.

‘Don’t be out of heart, sonny,’ he cried. ‘Here’s a handpost. Enoch — come and climm this post, and tell us the
way.’

The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood under a tree.

‘Unstrap the baskets, or you’ll smash up that wine!’ cried Darton, as the young man began spasmodically to climb the
post, baskets and all.

‘Was there ever less head in a brainless world?’ said Johns. ‘Here, simple Nocky, I’ll do it.’ He leapt off, and
with much puffing climbed the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the light along the arm, the
lad standing and gazing at the spectacle.

‘I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as milk!’ said Japheth; ‘but such things as
this don’t come short of devilry!’ And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the ground.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Darton.

‘Not a letter, sacred or heathen — not so much as would tell us the way to the great fireplace — ever I should sin
to say it! Either the moss and mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a land where the natyves have lost
the art o’ writing, and should ha’ brought our compass like Christopher Columbus.’

‘Let us take the straightest road,’ said Darton placidly; ‘I shan’t be sorry to get there — ’tis a tiresome ride. I
would have driven if I had known.’

‘Nor I neither, sir,’ said Enoch. ‘These straps plough my shoulder like a zull. If ’tis much further to your lady’s
home, Maister Darton, I shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my innerds — hee, hee!’

‘Don’t you be such a reforming radical, Enoch,’ said Johns sternly. ‘Here, I’ll take the turkey.’

This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which ascended a hill, the left winding away under a
plantation. The pit-a-pat of their horses’ hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical directing-post stood in
solitude as before, holding out its blank arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the
Giant were sleeping there.

Chapter ii

Three miles to the left of the travellers, along the road they had not followed, rose an old house with mullioned
windows of Ham-hill stone, and chimneys of lavish solidity. It stood at the top of a slope beside King’s-Hintock
village-street; and immediately in front of it grew a large sycamore-tree, whose bared roots formed a convenient
staircase from the road below to the front door of the dwelling. Its situation gave the house what little distinctive
name it possessed, namely, ‘The Knap.’ Some forty yards off a brook dribbled past, which, for its size, made a great
deal of noise. At the back was a dairy barton, accessible for vehicles and live-stock by a side ‘drong.’ Thus much only
of the character of the homestead could be divined out of doors at this shady evening-time.

But within there was plenty of light to see by, as plenty was construed at Hintock. Beside a Tudor fireplace, whose
moulded four-centred arch was nearly hidden by a figured blue-cloth blower, were seated two women — mother and daughter
— Mrs. Hall, and Sarah, or Sally; for this was a part of the world where the latter modification had not as yet been
effaced as a vulgarity by the march of intellect. The owner of the name was the young woman by whose means Mr. Darton
proposed to put an end to his bachelor condition on the approaching day.

The mother’s bereavement had been so long ago as not to leave much mark of its occurrence upon her now, either in
face or clothes. She had resumed the mob-cap of her early married life, enlivening its whiteness by a few rose-du-Barry
ribbons. Sally required no such aids to pinkness. Roseate good-nature lit up her gaze; her features showed curves of
decision and judgment; and she might have been regarded without much mistake as a warm-hearted, quick-spirited,
handsome girl.

She did most of the talking, her mother listening with a half-absent air, as she picked up fragments of red-hot wood
ember with the tongs, and piled them upon the brands. But the number of speeches that passed was very small in
proportion to the meanings exchanged. Long experience together often enabled them to see the course of thought in each
other’s minds without a word being spoken. Behind them, in the centre of the room, the table was spread for supper,
certain whiffs of air laden with fat vapours, which ever and anon entered from the kitchen, denoting its preparation
there.

‘The new gown he was going to send you stays about on the way like himself,’ Sally’s mother was saying.

‘Yes, not finished, I daresay,’ cried Sally independently. ‘Lord, I shouldn’t be amazed if it didn’t come at all!
Young men make such kind promises when they are near you, and forget ’em when they go away. But he doesn’t intend it as
a wedding-gown — he gives it to me merely as a gown to wear when I like — a travelling-dress is what it would be called
by some. Come rathe or come late it don’t much matter, as I have a dress of my own to fall back upon. But what time is
it?’

She went to the family clock and opened the glass, for the hour was not otherwise discernible by night, and indeed
at all times was rather a thing to be investigated than beheld, so much more wall than window was there in the
apartment. ‘It is nearly eight,’ said she.

‘Eight o’clock, and neither dress nor man,’ said Mrs. Hall.

‘Mother, if you think to tantalize me by talking like that, you are much mistaken! Let him be as late as he will —
or stay away altogether — I don’t care,’ said Sally. But a tender, minute quaver in the negation showed that there was
something forced in that statement.

Mrs. Hall perceived it, and drily observed that she was not so sure about Sally not caring. ‘But perhaps you don’t
care so much as I do, after all,’ she said. ‘For I see what you don’t, that it is a good and flourishing match for you;
a very honourable offer in Mr. Darton. And I think I see a kind husband in him. So pray God ’twill go smooth, and wind
up well.’

Sally would not listen to misgivings. Of course it would go smoothly, she asserted. ‘How you are up and down,
mother!’ she went on. ‘At this moment, whatever hinders him, we are not so anxious to see him as he is to be here, and
his thought runs on before him, and settles down upon us like the star in the east. Hark!’ she exclaimed, with a breath
of relief, her eyes sparkling. ‘I heard something. Yes — here they are!’

The next moment her mother’s slower ear also distinguished the familiar reverberation occasioned by footsteps
clambering up the roots of the sycamore.

‘Yes it sounds like them at last,’ she said. ‘Well, it is not so very late after all, considering the distance.’

The footfall ceased, and they arose, expecting a knock. They began to think it might have been, after all, some
neighbouring villager under Bacchic influence, giving the centre of the road a wide berth, when their doubts were
dispelled by the new-comer’s entry into the passage. The door of the room was gently opened, and there appeared, not
the pair of travellers with whom we have already made acquaintance, but a pale-faced man in the garb of extreme poverty
— almost in rags.

‘O, it’s a tramp — gracious me!’ said Sally, starting back.

His cheeks and eye-orbits were deep concaves — rather, it might be, from natural weakness of constitution than
irregular living, though there were indications that he had led no careful life. He gazed at the two women fixedly for
a moment: then with an abashed, humiliated demeanour, dropped his glance to the floor, and sank into a chair without
uttering a word.

Sally was in advance of her mother, who had remained standing by the fire. She now tried to discern the visitor
across the candles.

‘Why — mother,’ said Sally faintly, turning back to Mrs. Hall. ‘It is Phil, from Australia!’

Mrs. Hall started, and grew pale, and a fit of coughing seized the man with the ragged clothes. ‘To come home like
this!’ she said. ‘O, Philip — are you ill?’

‘No, no, mother,’ replied he impatiently, as soon as he could speak.

‘But for God’s sake how do you come here — and just now too?’

‘Well, I am here,’ said the man. ‘How it is I hardly know. I’ve come home, mother, because I was driven to it.
Things were against me out there, and went from bad to worse.’

‘Then why didn’t you let us know? — you’ve not writ a line for the last two or three years.’

The son admitted sadly that he had not. He said that he had hoped and thought he might fetch up again, and be able
to send good news. Then he had been obliged to abandon that hope, and had finally come home from sheer necessity —
previously to making a new start. ‘Yes, things are very bad with me,’ he repeated, perceiving their commiserating
glances at his clothes.

They brought him nearer the fire, took his hat from his thin hand, which was so small and smooth as to show that his
attempts to fetch up again had not been in a manual direction. His mother resumed her inquiries, and dubiously asked if
he had chosen to come that particular night for any special reason.

For no reason, he told her. His arrival had been quite at random. Then Philip Hall looked round the room, and saw
for the first time that the table was laid somewhat luxuriously, and for a larger number than themselves; and that an
air of festivity pervaded their dress. He asked quickly what was going on.

‘Sally is going to be married in a day or two,’ replied the mother; and she explained how Mr. Darton, Sally’s
intended husband, was coming there that night with the groomsman, Mr. Johns, and other details. ‘We thought it must be
their step when we heard you,’ said Mrs. Hall.

The needy wanderer looked again on the floor. ‘I see — I see,’ he murmured. ‘Why, indeed, should I have come
to-night? Such folk as I are not wanted here at these times, naturally. And I have no business here — spoiling other
people’s happiness.’

‘Phil,’ said his mother, with a tear in her eye, but with a thinness of lip and severity of manner which were
presumably not more than past events justified; ‘since you speak like that to me, I’ll speak honestly to you. For these
three years you have taken no thought for us. You left home with a good supply of money, and strength and education,
and you ought to have made good use of it all. But you come back like a beggar; and that you come in a very awkward
time for us cannot be denied. Your return to-night may do us much harm. But mind — you are welcome to this home as long
as it is mine. I don’t wish to turn you adrift. We will make the best of a bad job; and I hope you are not seriously
ill?’

‘O no. I have only this infernal cough.’

She looked at him anxiously. ‘I think you had better go to bed at once,’ she said.

‘Well — I shall be out of the way there,’ said the son wearily. ‘Having ruined myself, don’t let me ruin you by
being seen in these togs, for Heaven’s sake. Who do you say Sally is going to be married to — a Farmer Darton?’

‘Yes — a gentleman-farmer — quite a wealthy man. Far better in station than she could have expected. It is a good
thing, altogether.’

‘Well done, little Sal!’ said her brother, brightening and looking up at her with a smile. ‘I ought to have written;
but perhaps I have thought of you all the more. But let me get out of sight. I would rather go and jump into the river
than be seen here. But have you anything I can drink? I am confoundedly thirsty with my long tramp.’

‘Yes, yes, we will bring something upstairs to you,’ said Sally, with grief in her face.

‘Ay, that will do nicely. But, Sally and mother — ’ He stopped, and they waited. ‘Mother, I have not told you all,’
he resumed slowly, still looking on the floor between his knees. ‘Sad as what you see of me is, there’s worse
behind.’

His mother gazed upon him in grieved suspense, and Sally went and leant upon the bureau, listening for every sound,
and sighing. Suddenly she turned round, saying, ‘Let them come, I don’t care! Philip, tell the worst, and take your
time.’

‘Well, then,’ said the unhappy Phil, ‘I am not the only one in this mess. Would to Heaven I were! But — ’

‘O, Phil!’

‘I have a wife as destitute as I.’

‘A wife?’ said his mother.

‘Unhappily!’

‘A wife! Yes, that is the way with sons!’

‘And besides — ’ said he.

‘Besides! O, Philip, surely — ’

‘I have two little children.’

‘Wife and children!’ whispered Mrs. Hall, sinking down confounded.

‘Poor little things!’ said Sally involuntarily.

His mother turned again to him. ‘I suppose these helpless beings are left in Australia?’

‘No. They are in England.’

‘Well, I can only hope you’ve left them in a respectable place.’

‘I have not left them at all. They are here — within a few yards of us. In short, they are in the stable.’

‘Where?’

‘In the stable. I did not like to bring them indoors till I had seen you, mother, and broken the bad news a bit to
you. They were very tired, and are resting out there on some straw.’

Mrs. Hall’s fortitude visibly broke down. She had been brought up not without refinement, and was even more moved by
such a collapse of genteel aims as this than a substantial dairyman’s widow would in ordinary have been moved. ‘Well,
it must be borne,’ she said, in a low voice, with her hands tightly joined. ‘A starving son, a starving wife, starving
children! Let it be. But why is this come to us now, today, to-night? Could no other misfortune happen to helpless
women than this, which will quite upset my poor girl’s chance of a happy life? Why have you done us this wrong, Philip?
What respectable man will come here, and marry open-eyed into a family of vagabonds?’

‘Nonsense, mother!’ said Sally vehemently, while her face flushed. ‘Charley isn’t the man to desert me. But if he
should be, and won’t marry me because Phil’s come, let him go and marry elsewhere. I won’t be ashamed of my own flesh
and blood for any man in England — not I!’ And then Sally turned away and burst into tears.

‘Wait till you are twenty years older and you will tell a different tale,’ replied her mother.

The son stood up. ‘Mother,’ he said bitterly, ‘as I have come, so I will go. All I ask of you is that you will allow
me and mine to lie in your stable to-night. I give you my word that we’ll be gone by break of day, and trouble you no
further!’

Mrs. Hall, the mother, changed at that. ‘O no,’ she answered hastily; ‘never shall it be said that I sent any of my
own family from my door. Bring ’em in, Philip, or take me out to them.’

‘We will put ’em all into the large bedroom,’ said Sally, brightening, ‘and make up a large fire. Let’s go and help
them in, and call Rebekah.’ (Rebekah was the woman who assisted at the dairy and housework; she lived in a cottage hard
by with her husband, who attended to the cows.)

Sally went to fetch a lantern from the back-kitchen, but her brother said, ‘You won’t want a light. I lit the
lantern that was hanging there.’

‘Then Heaven help us!’ said Mrs. Hall, pushing to the door and clasping her hands in calm despair.

‘We passed through Evershead as we came,’ he continued, ‘and I just looked in at the “Sow-and-Acorn” to see if old
Mike still kept on there as usual. The carrier had come in from Sherton Abbas at that moment, and guessing that I was
bound for this place — for I think he knew me — he asked me to bring on a dressmaker’s parcel for Sally that was marked
“immediate.” My wife had walked on with the children. ’Twas a flimsy parcel, and the paper was torn, and I found on
looking at it that it was a thick warm gown. I didn’t wish you to see poor Helena in a shabby state. I was ashamed that
you should — ’twas not what she was born to. I untied the parcel in the road, took it on to her where she was waiting
in the Lower Barn, and told her I had managed to get it for her, and that she was to ask no question. She, poor thing,
must have supposed I obtained it on trust, through having reached a place where I was known, for she put it on gladly
enough. She has it on now. Sally has other gowns, I daresay.’

Sally looked at her mother, speechless.

‘You have others, I daresay!’ repeated Phil, with a sick man’s impatience. ‘I thought to myself, “Better Sally cry
than Helena freeze.” Well, is the dress of great consequence? ’Twas nothing very ornamental, as far as I could
see.’

‘No — no; not of consequence,’ returned Sally sadly, adding in a gentle voice, ‘You will not mind if I lend her
another instead of that one, will you?’

Philip’s agitation at the confession had brought on another attack of the cough, which seemed to shake him to
pieces. He was so obviously unfit to sit in a chair that they helped him upstairs at once; and having hastily given him
a cordial and kindled the bedroom fire, they descended to fetch their unhappy new relations.

Chapter iii

It was with strange feelings that the girl and her mother, lately so cheerful, passed out of the back door into the
open air of the barton, laden with hay scents and the herby breath of cows. A fine sleet had begun to fall, and they
trotted across the yard quickly. The stable-door was open; a light shone from it — from the lantern which always hung
there, and which Philip had lighted, as he said. Softly nearing the door, Mrs. Hall pronounced the name ‘Helena!’

There was no answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by surprise. Two people appeared before her. For one,
instead of the drabbish woman she had expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed, ladylike creature, whose personality
ruled her attire rather than was ruled by it. She was in a new and handsome gown, of course, and an old bonnet. She was
standing up, agitated; her hand was held by her companion — none else than Sally’s affianced, Farmer Charles Darton,
upon whose fine figure the pale stranger’s eyes were fixed, as his were fixed upon her. His other hand held the rein of
his horse, which was standing saddled as if just led in.

At sight of Mrs. Hall they both turned, looking at her in a way neither quite conscious nor unconscious, and without
seeming to recollect that words were necessary as a solution to the scene. In another moment Sally entered also, when
Mr. Darton dropped his companion’s hand, led the horse aside, and came to greet his betrothed and Mrs. Hall.

‘Ah!’ he said, smiling — with something like forced composure — ‘this is a roundabout way of arriving, you will say,
my dear Mrs. Hall. But we lost our way, which made us late. I saw a light here, and led in my horse at once — my friend
Johns and my man have gone back to the little inn with theirs, not to crowd you too much. No sooner had I entered than
I saw that this lady had taken temporary shelter here — and found I was intruding.’

‘She is my daughter-inlaw,’ said Mrs. Hall calmly. ‘My son, too, is in the house, but he has gone to bed
unwell.’

Sally had stood staring wonderingly at the scene until this moment, hardly recognizing Darton’s shake of the hand.
The spell that bound her was broken by her perceiving the two little children seated on a heap of hay. She suddenly
went forward, spoke to them, and took one on her arm and the other in her hand.

‘And two children?’ said Mr. Darton, showing thus that he had not been there long enough as yet to understand the
situation.

‘My grandchildren,’ said Mrs. Hall, with as much affected ease as before.

Philip Hall’s wife, in spite of this interruption to her first rencounter, seemed scarcely so much affected by it as
to feel any one’s presence in addition to Mr. Darton’s. However, arousing herself by a quick reflection, she threw a
sudden critical glance of her sad eyes upon Mrs. Hall; and, apparently finding her satisfactory, advanced to her in a
meek initiative. Then Sally and the stranger spoke some friendly words to each other, and Sally went on with the
children into the house. Mrs. Hall and Helena followed, and Mr. Darton followed these, looking at Helena’s dress and
outline, and listening to her voice like a man in a dream.

By the time the others reached the house Sally had already gone upstairs with the tired children. She rapped against
the wall for Rebekah to come in and help to attend to them, Rebekah’s house being a little ‘spit-and-dab’ cabin leaning
against the substantial stone-work of Mrs. Hall’s taller erection. When she came a bed was made up for the little ones,
and some supper given to them. On descending the stairs after seeing this done Sally went to the sitting-room. Young
Mrs. Hall entered it just in advance of her, having in the interim retired with her mother-inlaw to take off her
bonnet, and otherwise make herself presentable. Hence it was evident that no further communication could have passed
between her and Mr. Darton since their brief interview in the stable.

Mr. Japheth Johns now opportunely arrived, and broke up the restraint of the company, after a few orthodox
meteorological commentaries had passed between him and Mrs. Hall by way of introduction. They at once sat down to
supper, the present of wine and turkey not being produced for consumption to-night, lest the premature display of those
gifts should seem to throw doubt on Mrs. Hall’s capacities as a provider.

‘Drink hearty, Mr. Johns — drink hearty,’ said that matron magnanimously. ‘Such as it is there’s plenty of. But
perhaps cider-wine is not to your taste? — though there’s body in it.’

‘Quite the contrairy, ma’am — quite the contrairy,’ said the dairyman. ‘For though I inherit the malt-liquor
principle from my father, I am a cider-drinker on my mother’s side. She came from these parts, you know. And there’s
this to be said for’t — ’tis a more peaceful liquor, and don’t lie about a man like your hotter drinks. With care, one
may live on it a twelvemonth without knocking down a neighbour, or getting a black eye from an old acquaintance.’

The general conversation thus begun was continued briskly, though it was in the main restricted to Mrs. Hall and
Japheth, who in truth required but little help from anybody. There being slight call upon Sally’s tongue, she had ample
leisure to do what her heart most desired, namely, watch her intended husband and her sister-inlaw with a view of
elucidating the strange momentary scene in which her mother and herself had surprised them in the stable. If that scene
meant anything, it meant, at least, that they had met before. That there had been no time for explanations Sally could
see, for their manner was still one of suppressed amazement at each other’s presence there. Darton’s eyes, too, fell
continually on the gown worn by Helena as if this were an added riddle to his perplexity; though to Sally it was the
one feature in the case which was no mystery. He seemed to feel that fate had impishly changed his vis-a-vis in the
lover’s jig he was about to foot; that while the gown had been expected to enclose a Sally, a Helena’s face looked out
from the bodice; that some long-lost hand met his own from the sleeves.

Sally could see that whatever Helena might know of Darton, she knew nothing of how the dress entered into his
embarrassment. And at moments the young girl would have persuaded herself that Darton’s looks at her sister-inlaw were
entirely the fruit of the clothes query. But surely at other times a more extensive range of speculation and sentiment
was expressed by her lover’s eye than that which the changed dress would account for.

Sally’s independence made her one of the least jealous of women. But there was something in the relations of these
two visitors which ought to be explained.

Japheth Johns continued to converse in his well-known style, interspersing his talk with some private reflections on
the position of Darton and Sally, which, though the sparkle in his eye showed them to be highly entertaining to
himself, were apparently not quite communicable to the company. At last he withdrew for the night, going off to the
roadside inn half-a-mile back, whither Darton promised to follow him in a few minutes.

Half-an-hour passed, and then Mr. Darton also rose to leave, Sally and her sister-inlaw simultaneously wishing him
good-night as they retired upstairs to their rooms. But on his arriving at the front door with Mrs. Hall a sharp shower
of rain began to come down, when the widow suggested that he should return to the fire-side till the storm ceased.

Darton accepted her proposal, but insisted that, as it was getting late, and she was obviously tired, she should not
sit up on his account, since he could let himself out of the house, and would quite enjoy smoking a pipe by the hearth
alone. Mrs. Hall assented; and Darton was left by himself. He spread his knees to the brands, lit up his tobacco as he
had said, and sat gazing into the fire, and at the notches of the chimney-crook which hung above.

An occasional drop of rain rolled down the chimney with a hiss, and still he smoked on; but not like a man whose
mind was at rest. In the long run, however, despite his meditations, early hours afield and a long ride in the open air
produced their natural result. He began to doze.

How long he remained in this half-unconscious state he did not know. He suddenly opened his eyes. The back-brand had
burnt itself in two, and ceased to flame; the light which he had placed on the mantelpiece had nearly gone out. But in
spite of these deficiencies there was a light in the apartment, and it came from elsewhere. Turning his head he saw
Philip Hall’s wife standing at the entrance of the room with a bed-candle in one hand, a small brass tea-kettle in the
other, and his gown, as it certainly seemed, still upon her.

‘Helena!’ said Darton, starting up.

Her countenance expressed dismay, and her first words were an apology. ‘I— did not know you were here, Mr. Darton,’
she said, while a blush flashed to her cheek. ‘I thought every one had retired — I was coming to make a little water
boil; my husband seems to be worse. But perhaps the kitchen fire can be lighted up again.’

‘Don’t go on my account. By all means put it on here as you intended,’ said Darton. ‘Allow me to help you.’ He went
forward to take the kettle from her hand, but she did not allow him, and placed it on the fire herself.

They stood some way apart, one on each side of the fireplace, waiting till the water should boil, the candle on the
mantel between them, and Helena with her eyes on the kettle. Darton was the first to break the silence. ‘Shall I call
Sally?’ he said.

‘O no,’ she quickly returned. ‘We have given trouble enough already. We have no right here. But we are the sport of
fate, and were obliged to come.’

‘No right here!’ said he in surprise.

‘None. I can’t explain it now,’ answered Helena. ‘This kettle is very slow.’

There was another pause; the proverbial dilatoriness of watched pots was never more clearly exemplified.

Helena’s face was of that sort which seems to ask for assistance without the owner’s knowledge — the very antipodes
of Sally’s, which was self-reliance expressed. Darton’s eyes travelled from the kettle to Helena’s face, then back to
the kettle, then to the face for rather a longer time. ‘So I am not to know anything of the mystery that has distracted
me all the evening?’ he said. ‘How is it that a woman, who refused me because (as I supposed) my position was not good
enough for her taste, is found to be the wife of a man who certainly seems to be worse off than I?’

‘He had the prior claim,’ said she.

‘What! you knew him at that time?’

‘Yes, yes! Please say no more,’ she implored.

‘Whatever my errors, I have paid for them during the last five years!’

The heart of Darton was subject to sudden overflowings. He was kind to a fault. ‘I am sorry from my soul,’ he said,
involuntarily approaching her. Helena withdrew a step or two, at which he became conscious of his movement, and quickly
took his former place. Here he stood without speaking, and the little kettle began to sing.

‘Well, you might have been my wife if you had chosen,’ he said at last. ‘But that’s all past and gone. However, if
you are in any trouble or poverty I shall be glad to be of service, and as your relation by marriage I shall have a
right to be. Does your uncle know of your distress?’

‘My uncle is dead. He left me without a farthing. And now we have two children to maintain.’

‘What, left you nothing? How could he be so cruel as that?’

‘I disgraced myself in his eyes.’

‘Now,’ said Darton earnestly, ‘let me take care of the children, at least while you are so unsettled. You belong to
another, so I cannot take care of you.’

‘Yes you can,’ said a voice; and suddenly a third figure stood beside them. It was Sally. ‘You can, since you seem
to wish to?’ she repeated. ‘She no longer belongs to another . . . My poor brother is dead!’

Her face was red, her eyes sparkled, and all the woman came to the front. ‘I have heard it!’ she went on to him
passionately. ‘You can protect her now as well as the children!’ She turned then to her agitated sister-inlaw. ‘I heard
something,’ said Sally (in a gentle murmur, differing much from her previous passionate words), ‘and I went into his
room. It must have been the moment you left. He went off so quickly, and weakly, and it was so unexpected, that I
couldn’t leave even to call you.’

Darton was just able to gather from the confused discourse which followed that, during his sleep by the fire, this
brother whom he had never seen had become worse; and that during Helena’s absence for water the end had unexpectedly
come. The two young women hastened upstairs, and he was again left alone.

* * * *

After standing there a short time he went to the front door and looked out; till, softly closing it behind him, he
advanced and stood under the large sycamore-tree. The stars were flickering coldly, and the dampness which had just
descended upon the earth in rain now sent up a chill from it. Darton was in a strange position, and he felt it. The
unexpected appearance, in deep poverty, of Helena — a young lady, daughter of a deceased naval officer, who had been
brought up by her uncle, a solicitor, and had refused Darton in marriage years ago — the passionate, almost angry
demeanour of Sally at discovering them, the abrupt announcement that Helena was a widow; all this coming together was a
conjuncture difficult to cope with in a moment, and made him question whether he ought to leave the house or offer
assistance. But for Sally’s manner he would unhesitatingly have done the latter.

He was still standing under the tree when the door in front of him opened, and Mrs. Hall came out. She went round to
the garden-gate at the side without seeing him. Darton followed her, intending to speak.

Pausing outside, as if in thought, she proceeded to a spot where the sun came earliest in spring-time, and where the
north wind never blew; it was where the row of beehives stood under the wall. Discerning her object, he waited till she
had accomplished it.

It was the universal custom thereabout to wake the bees by tapping at their hives whenever a death occurred in the
household, under the belief that if this were not done the bees themselves would pine away and perish during the
ensuing year. As soon as an interior buzzing responded to her tap at the first hive Mrs. Hall went on to the second,
and thus passed down the row. As soon as she came back he met her.

‘What can I do in this trouble, Mrs. Hall?’ he said.

‘O— nothing, thank you, nothing,’ she said in a tearful voice, now just perceiving him. ‘We have called Rebekah and
her husband, and they will do everything necessary.’ She told him in a few words the particulars of her son’s arrival,
broken in health — indeed, at death’s very door, though they did not suspect it — and suggested, as the result of a
conversation between her and her daughter, that the wedding should be postponed.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Darton. ‘I think now to go straight to the inn and tell Johns what has happened.’ It was not
till after he had shaken hands with her that he turned hesitatingly and added, ‘Will you tell the mother of his
children that, as they are now left fatherless, I shall be glad to take the eldest of them, if it would be any
convenience to her and to you?’

Mrs. Hall promised that her son’s widow should he told of the offer, and they parted. He retired down the rooty
slope and disappeared in the direction of the inn, where he informed Johns of the circumstances. Meanwhile Mrs. Hall
had entered the house, Sally was downstairs in the sitting-room alone, and her mother explained to her that Darton had
readily assented to the postponement.

‘No doubt he has,’ said Sally, with sad emphasis. ‘It is not put off for a week, or a month, or a year. I shall
never marry him, and she will!’

Chapter iv

Time passed, and the household on the Knap became again serene under the composing influences of daily routine. A
desultory, very desultory correspondence, dragged on between Sally Hall and Darton, who, not quite knowing how to take
her petulant words on the night of her brother’s death, had continued passive thus long. Helena and her children
remained at the dairy-house, almost of necessity, and Darton therefore deemed it advisable to stay away.

One day, seven months later on, when Mr. Darton was as usual at his farm, twenty miles from Hintock, a note reached
him from Helena. She thanked him for his kind offer about her children, which her mother-inlaw had duly communicated,
and stated that she would be glad to accept it as regarded the eldest, the boy. Helena had, in truth, good need to do
so, for her uncle had left her penniless, and all application to some relatives in the north had failed. There was,
besides, as she said, no good school near Hintock to which she could send the child.

On a fine summer day the boy came. He was accompanied half-way by Sally and his mother — to the ‘White Horse,’ at
Chalk Newton — where he was handed over to Darton’s bailiff in a shining spring-cart, who met them there.

He was entered as a day-scholar at a popular school at Casterbridge, three or four miles from Darton’s, having first
been taught by Darton to ride a forest-pony, on which he cantered to and from the aforesaid fount of knowledge, and (as
Darton hoped) brought away a promising headful of the same at each diurnal expedition. The thoughtful taciturnity into
which Darton had latterly fallen was quite dissipated by the presence of this boy.

When the Christmas holidays came it was arranged that he should spend them with his mother. The journey was, for
some reason or other, performed in two stages, as at his coming, except that Darton in person took the place of the
bailiff, and that the boy and himself rode on horseback.

Reaching the renowned ‘White Horse,’ Darton inquired if Miss and young Mrs. Hall were there to meet little Philip
(as they had agreed to be). He was answered by the appearance of Helena alone at the door.

‘At the last moment Sally would not come,’ she faltered.

That meeting practically settled the point towards which these long-severed persons were converging. But nothing was
broached about it for some time yet. Sally Hall had, in fact, imparted the first decisive motion to events by refusing
to accompany Helena. She soon gave them a second move by writing the following note

‘[Private.]

‘dear charles, — Living here so long and intimately with Helena, I have
naturally learnt her history, especially that of it which refers to
you. I am sure she would accept you as a husband at the proper time,
and I think you ought to give her the opportunity. You inquire in an
old note if I am sorry that I showed temper (which it wasn’t) that
night when I heard you talking to her. No, Charles, I am not sorry at
all for what I said then. — Yours sincerely, sally hall.’

Thus set in train, the transfer of Darton’s heart back to its original quarters proceeded by mere lapse of time. In
the following July, Darton went to his friend Japheth to ask him at last to fulfil the bridal office which had been in
abeyance since the previous January twelvemonths.

‘With all my heart, man o’ constancy!’ said Dairyman Johns warmly. ‘I’ve lost most of my genteel fair complexion
haymaking this hot weather, ’tis true, but I’ll do your business as well as them that look better. There be scents and
good hair-oil in the world yet, thank God, and they’ll take off the roughest o’ my edge. I’ll compliment her. “Better
late than never, Sally Hall,” I’ll say.’

‘It is not Sally,’ said Darton hurriedly. ‘It is young Mrs. Hall.’

Japheth’s face, as soon as he really comprehended, became a picture of reproachful dismay. ‘Not Sally?’ he said.
‘Why not Sally? I can’t believe it! Young Mrs. Hall! Well, well — where’s your wisdom?’

Darton shortly explained particulars; but Johns would not be reconciled. ‘She was a woman worth having if ever woman
was,’ he cried. ‘And now to let her go!’

‘But I suppose I can marry where I like,’ said Darton.

‘H’m,’ replied the dairyman, lifting his eyebrows expressively. ‘This don’t become you, Charles — it really do not.
If I had done such a thing you would have sworn I was a curst no’thern fool to be drawn off the scent by such a
red-herring doll-oll-oll.’

Farmer Darton responded in such sharp terms to this laconic opinion that the two friends finally parted in a way
they had never parted before. Johns was to be no groomsman to Darton after all. He had flatly declined. Darton went off
sorry, and even unhappy, particularly as Japheth was about to leave that side of the county, so that the words which
had divided them were not likely to be explained away or softened down.

A short time after the interview Darton was united to Helena at a simple matter-of fact wedding; and she and her
little girl joined the boy who had already grown to look on Darton’s house as home.

For some months the farmer experienced an unprecedented happiness and satisfaction. There had been a flaw in his
life, and it was as neatly mended as was humanly possible. But after a season the stream of events followed less
clearly, and there were shades in his reveries. Helena was a fragile woman, of little staying power, physically or
morally, and since the time that he had originally known her — eight or ten years before — she had been severely tried.
She had loved herself out, in short, and was now occasionally given to moping. Sometimes she spoke regretfully of the
gentilities of her early life, and instead of comparing her present state with her condition as the wife of the unlucky
Hall, she mused rather on what it had been before she took the first fatal step of clandestinely marrying him. She did
not care to please such people as those with whom she was thrown as a thriving farmer’s wife. She allowed the pretty
trifles of agricultural domesticity to glide by her as sorry details, and had it not been for the children Darton’s
house would have seemed but little brighter than it had been before.

This led to occasional unpleasantness, until Darton sometimes declared to himself that such endeavours as his to
rectify early deviations of the heart by harking back to the old point mostly failed of success. ‘Perhaps Johns was
right,’ he would say. ‘I should have gone on with Sally. Better go with the tide and make the best of its course than
stem it at the risk of a capsize.’ But he kept these unmelodious thoughts to himself, and was outwardly considerate and
kind.

This somewhat barren tract of his life had extended to less than a year and a half when his ponderings were cut
short by the loss of the woman they concerned. When she was in her grave he thought better of her than when she had
been alive; the farm was a worse place without her than with her, after all. No woman short of divine could have gone
through such an experience as hers with her first husband without becoming a little soured. Her stagnant sympathies,
her sometimes unreasonable manner, had covered a heart frank and well meaning, and originally hopeful and warm. She
left him a tiny red infant in white wrappings. To make life as easy as possible to this touching object became at once
his care.

As this child learnt to walk and talk Darton learnt to see feasibility in a scheme which pleased him. Revolving the
experiment which he had hitherto made upon life, he fancied he had gained wisdom from his mistakes and caution from his
miscarriages.

What the scheme was needs no penetration to discover. Once more he had opportunity to recast and rectify his
ill-wrought situations by returning to Sally Hall, who still lived quietly on under her mother’s roof at Hintock.
Helena had been a woman to lend pathos and refinement to a home; Sally was the woman to brighten it. She would not, as
Helena did, despise the rural simplicities of a farmer’s fireside. Moreover, she had a pre-eminent qualification for
Darton’s household; no other woman could make so desirable a mother to her brother’s two children and Darton’s one as
Sally — while Darton, now that Helena had gone, was a more promising husband for Sally than he had ever been when
liable to reminders from an uncured sentimental wound.

Darton was not a man to act rapidly, and the working out of his reparative designs might have been delayed for some
time. But there came a winter evening precisely like the one which had darkened over that former ride to Hintock, and
he asked himself why he should postpone longer, when the very landscape called for a repetition of that attempt.

He told his man to saddle the mare, booted and spurred himself with a younger horseman’s nicety, kissed the two
youngest children, and rode off. To make the journey a complete parallel to the first, he would fain have had his old
acquaintance Japheth Johns with him. But Johns, alas! was missing. His removal to the other side of the county had left
unrepaired the breach which had arisen between him and Darton; and though Darton had forgiven him a hundred times, as
Johns had probably forgiven Darton, the effort of reunion in present circumstances was one not likely to be made.

He screwed himself up to as cheerful a pitch as he could without his former crony, and became content with his own
thoughts as he rode, instead of the words of a companion. The sun went down; the boughs appeared scratched in like an
etching against the sky; old crooked men with faggots at their backs said ‘Good-night, sir,’ and Darton replied
‘Good-night’ right heartily.

By the time he reached the forking roads it was getting as dark as it had been on the occasion when Johns climbed
the directing-post. Darton made no mistake this time. ‘Nor shall I be able to mistake, thank Heaven, when I arrive,’ he
murmured. It gave him peculiar satisfaction to think that the proposed marriage, like his first, was of the nature of
setting in order things long awry, and not a momentary freak of fancy.

Nothing hindered the smoothness of his journey, which seemed not half its former length. Though dark, it was only
between five and six o’clock when the bulky chimneys of Mrs. Hall’s residence appeared in view behind the
sycamore-tree. On second thoughts he retreated and put up at the ale-house as in former time; and when he had plumed
himself before the inn mirror, called for something to drink, and smoothed out the incipient wrinkles of care, he
walked on to the Knap with a quick step.

Chapter v

That evening Sally was making ‘pinners’ for the milkers, who were now increased by two, for her mother and herself
no longer joined in milking the cows themselves. But upon the whole there was little change in the household economy,
and not much in its appearance, beyond such minor particulars as that the crack over the window, which had been a
hundred years coming, was a trifle wider; that the beams were a shade blacker; that the influence of modernism had
supplanted the open chimney corner by a grate; that Rebekah, who had worn a cap when she had plenty of hair, had left
it off now she had scarce any, because it was reported that caps were not fashionable; and that Sally’s face had
naturally assumed a more womanly and experienced cast.

Mrs. Hall was actually lifting coals with the tongs, as she had used to do.

‘Five years ago this very night, if I am not mistaken — ’ she said, laying on an ember.

‘Not this very night — though ’twas one night this week,’ said the correct Sally.

‘Well, ’tis near enough. Five years ago Mr. Darton came to marry you, and my poor boy Phil came home to die.’ She
sighed. ‘Ah, Sally,’ she presently said, ‘if you had managed well Mr. Darton would have had you, Helena or none.’

‘Don’t be sentimental about that, mother,’ begged Sally. ‘I didn’t care to manage well in such a case. Though I
liked him, I wasn’t so anxious. I would never have married the man in the midst of such a hitch as that was,’ she added
with decision; ‘and I don’t think I would if he were to ask me now.’

‘I am not sure about that, unless you have another in your eye.’

‘I wouldn’t; and I’ll tell you why. I could hardly marry him for love at this time o’ day. And as we’ve quite enough
to live on if we give up the dairy tomorrow, I should have no need to marry for any meaner reason . . . I am
quite happy enough as I am, and there’s an end of it.’

Now it was not long after this dialogue that there came a mild rap at the door, and in a moment there entered
Rebekah, looking as though a ghost had arrived. The fact was that that accomplished skimmer and churner (now a resident
in the house) had overheard the desultory observations between mother and daughter, and on opening the door to Mr.
Darton thought the coincidence must have a grisly meaning in it. Mrs. Hall welcomed the farmer with warm surprise, as
did Sally, and for a moment they rather wanted words.

‘Can you push up the chimney-crook for me, Mr Darton? the notches hitch,’ said the matron. He did it, and the homely
little act bridged over the awkward consciousness that he had been a stranger for four years.

Mrs. Hall soon saw what he had come for, and left the principals together while she went to prepare him a late tea,
smiling at Sally’s recent hasty assertions of indifference, when she saw how civil Sally was. When tea was ready she
joined them. She fancied that Darton did not look so confident as when he had arrived; but Sally was quite
light-hearted, and the meal passed pleasantly.

About seven he took his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the door to light him down the slope. On the
doorstep he said frankly — ‘I came to ask your daughter to marry me; chose the night and everything, with an eye to a
favourable answer. But she won’t.’

‘I can’t say that there is, or that there isn’t,’ answered Mrs. Hall. ‘She’s private in some things. I’m on your
side, however, Mr. Darton, and I’ll talk to her.’

‘Thank ‘ee, thank ‘ee!’ said the farmer in a gayer accent; and with this assurance the not very satisfactory visit
came to an end. Darton descended the roots of the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, and the door closed. At the bottom
of the slope he nearly ran against a man about to ascend.

‘Can a jack-o’-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or can’t he?’ exclaimed one whose utterance Darton
recognized in a moment, despite its unexpectedness. ‘I dare not swear he can, though I fain would!’ The speaker was
Johns.

Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it was, of putting an end to the silence of years, and asked the
dairyman what he was travelling that way for.

Japheth showed the old jovial confidence in a moment. ‘I’m going to see your — relations — as they always seem to
me,’ he said — ‘Mrs. Hall and Sally. Well, Charles, the fact is I find the natural barbarousness of man is much
increased by a bachelor life, and, as your leavings were always good enough for me, I’m trying civilization here.’ He
nodded towards the house.

‘Not with Sally — to marry her?’ said Darton, feeling something like a rill of ice water between his shoulders.

‘Yes, by the help of Providence and my personal charms. And I think I shall get her. I am this road every week — my
present dairy is only four miles off, you know, and I see her through the window. ’Tis rather odd that I was going to
speak practical to-night to her for the first time. You’ve just called?’

‘Yes, for a short while. But she didn’t say a word about you.’

‘A good sign, a good sign. Now that decides me. I’ll swing the mallet and get her answer this very night as I
planned.’

A few more remarks, and Darton, wishing his friend joy of Sally in a slightly hollow tone of jocularity, bade him
good-bye. Johns promised to write particulars, and ascended, and was lost in the shade of the house and tree. A
rectangle of light appeared when Johns was admitted, and all was dark again.

‘Happy Japheth!’ said Darton. ‘This then is the explanation!’

He determined to return home that night. In a quarter of an hour he passed out of the village, and the next day went
about his swede-lifting and storing as if nothing had occurred.

He waited and waited to hear from Johns whether the wedding-day was fixed: but no letter came. He learnt not a
single particular till, meeting Johns one day at a horse-auction, Darton exclaimed genially — rather more genially than
he felt — ‘When is the joyful day to be?’

To his great surprise a reciprocity of gladness was not conspicuous in Johns. ‘Not at all,’ he said, in a very
subdued tone. ‘’Tis a bad job; she won’t have me.’

Darton held his breath till he said with treacherous solicitude, ‘Try again — ’tis coyness.’

‘O no,’ said Johns decisively. ‘There’s been none of that. We talked it over dozens of times in the most fair and
square way. She tells me plainly, I don’t suit her. ‘Twould be simply annoying her to ask her again. Ah, Charles, you
threw a prize away when you let her slip five years ago.’

‘I did — I did,’ said Darton.

He returned from that auction with a new set of feelings in play. He had certainly made a surprising mistake in
thinking Johns his successful rival. It really seemed as if he might hope for Sally after all.

This time, being rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to pen-and-ink, and wrote her as manly and
straightforward a proposal as any woman could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:—

‘dear mr. darton, — i am as sensible as any woman can be of the
goodness that leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better
women than I would be proud of the honour, for when I read your nice
long speeches on mangold-wurzel, and such like topics, at the
Casterbridge Farmers’ Club, I do feel it an honour, I assure you. But
my answer is just the same as before. I will not try to explain what,
in truth, I cannot explain — my reasons; I will simply say that I must
decline to be married to you. With good wishes as in former times, I
am, your faithful friend,

‘sally hall.’

Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there was just a possibility of sarcasm in it — ‘nice
long speeches on mangold-wurzel’ had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, there was the answer, and he had to
be content.

He proceeded to seek relief in a business which at this time engrossed much of his attention — that of clearing up a
curious mistake just current in the county, that he had been nearly ruined by the recent failure of a local bank. A
farmer named Darton had lost heavily, and the similarity of name had probably led to the error. Belief in it was so
persistent that it demanded several days of letter-writing to set matters straight, and persuade the world that he was
as solvent as ever he had been in his life. He had hardly concluded this worrying task when, to his delight, another
letter arrived in the handwriting of Sally.

Darton tore it open; it was very short.

‘dear mr. darton, — We have been so alarmed these last few days by the
report that you were ruined by the stoppage of — ‘s Bank, that, now it
is contradicted I hasten, by my mother’s wish, to say how truly glad
we are to find there is no foundation for the report. After your
kindness to my poor brother’s children, I can do no less than write at
such a moment. We had a letter from each of them a few days ago. — Your
faithful friend,

‘sally hall.’

‘Mercenary little woman!’ said Darton to himself with a smile. ‘Then that was the secret of her refusal this time —
she thought I was ruined.’

Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help feeling too generously towards Sally to condemn her in
this. What did he want in a wife? he asked himself. Love and integrity. What next? Worldly wisdom. And was there really
more than worldly wisdom in her refusal to go aboard a sinking ship? She now knew it was otherwise. ‘Begad,’ he said,
‘I’ll try her again.’

The fact was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that nothing was to be allowed to baulk him; and
his reasoning was purely formal.

Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day late in May — a day when all animate nature
was fancying, in its trusting, foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for evermore. As he rode through
Long–Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable as the track of his two winter journeys. No mistake could be made now, even
with his eyes shut. The cuckoo’s note was at its best, between April tentativeness and midsummer decrepitude, and the
reptiles in the sun behaved as winningly as kittens on a hearth. Though afternoon, and about the same time as on the
last occasion, it was broad day and sunshine when he entered Hintock, and the details of the Knap dairy-house were
visible far up the road. He saw Sally in the garden, and was set vibrating. He had first intended to go on to the inn;
but ‘No,’ he said; ‘I’ll tie my horse to the garden-gate. If all goes well it can soon be taken round: if not, I mount
and ride away’

The tall shade of the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall sat, and made her start, for he had ridden by a
side path to the top of the slope, where riders seldom came. In a few seconds he was in the garden with Sally.

Five — ay, three minutes — did the business at the back of that row of bees. Though spring had come, and heavenly
blue consecrated the scene, Darton succeeded not. ‘No,’ said Sally firmly. ‘I will never, never marry you, Mr. Darton.
I would have done it once; but now I never can.’

‘But!’ — implored Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real eloquence he went on to declare all sorts of things that he
would do for her. He would drive her to see her mother every week — take her to London — settle so much money upon her
— Heaven knows what he did not promise, suggest, and tempt her with. But it availed nothing. She interposed with a
stout negative, which closed the course of his argument like an iron gate across a highway. Darton paused.

‘Then,’ said he simply, ‘you hadn’t heard of my supposed failure when you declined last time?’

‘I had not,’ she said. ‘But if I had ‘twould have been all the same.’

‘And ’tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years ago?’

‘No. That soreness is long past.’

‘Ah — then you despise me, Sally?’

‘No,’ she slowly answered. ‘I don’t altogether despise you. I don’t think you quite such a hero as I once did —
that’s all. The truth is, I am happy enough as I am; and I don’t mean to marry at all. Now, may I ask a favour, sir?’
She spoke with an ineffable charm, which, whenever he thought of it, made him curse his loss of her as long as he
lived.

‘To any extent.’

‘Please do not put this question to me any more. Friends as long as you like, but lovers and married never.’

‘I never will,’ said Darton. ‘Not if I live a hundred years.’

And he never did. That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was only too plain.

When his step-children had grown up, and were placed out in life, all communication between Darton and the Hall
family ceased. It was only by chance that, years after, he learnt that Sally, notwithstanding the solicitations her
attractions drew down upon her, had refused several offers of marriage, and steadily adhered to her purpose of leading
a single life